As soon as I caught a glimpse of her I knew I had to send a message. That was how I encountered The Crow’s Handler or Manager. He was oddly dressed in mismatched clothing like a jester or carnival midway tout in a plaid jacket and wide horizontal-striped trousers. He was earnest and serious, and there was a formal process. He directed me to The Crow’s office waiting room. The space I entered I knew as Grant Hall Gallery, but it was transformed beyond recognition. Yet it was immediately familiar as the archetypal institutional waiting room complete with bland walls, worn out furniture, and dog-eared magazines. (Not the usual People and Time, I noticed, but magazines with news of the Occult and Spiritual). Other clients (were we customers or patients?) I will call us petitioners, waited in chairs along the wall as in an ordinary office. Some were chatting comfortably, others sat isolated and pensive, still others were filling out forms and negotiating appointment times. An efficient, slightly harried receptionist worked purposefully at a desk in the corner of the room. I was surprised at the banality of the setting given the extraordinary nature of the event. On the other hand, the humble shabbiness of the room and the paper-shuffling receptionist were oddly comforting. I was less prepared, however, for the intrusive paperwork, which assigned me a number, recorded my arrival time, and asked for specifics: Client’s name? Address? Relationship to Client? Subject of Message- check one: Love, Greeting, Promise, Thanks, Comment, Question, Proposal, Appeal, Disclosure, Grievance, Forgiveness, Resolution, Other, Decline to state? There was, in addition, a lengthy, legally worded statement, requiring a signature and a witness. It granted The Crow permission to handle and deliver the message and bound the signatory to all kinds of privacy and cooperative agreements. I caught myself feeling discomfort, irritation, and indignation. The last line of the form, requiring Manager’s approval, raised the possibility of rejection. Now I added anxiety to my list. Really, I thought, are they serious? At the same time, irrationally, I experienced pleasure and amusement. What a funny paradox. I was forced to think about this curious transaction in ways I had not anticipated. The degree of bureaucratic elaboration, which increased at every step of the process, reflected the seriousness and complexity of the transaction. There was no denying the sacred, intuitive nature of the project, and yet it had an ironic, tongue-in-cheek, satirical edge. I was invited to wonder. I realized that in spite of my good intentions I came burdened by preconceptions and limited by expectation. I had come prepared to play the role of passive spectator from a safe distance where I could watch and measure, as anonymously as possible. It was impossible not to notice that the burden of the project, art event, performance/installation –by whatever we were calling it- no longer completely rested on the “artist/performers” but by a cunning sleight of hand imperceptibly shifted to the audience, to me. Put another way, I was no longer outside looking in, but part of the show. United Catalysts challenged me to invest more of myself in the intimacy of the transaction. A significant part of the petition process was a probing one-on-one interview that included an unexpected, potentially disquieting conversation about establishing a monetary value for the transaction. The idea that sending a message by The Crow might cost something was never mentioned in any of the notices. This portion of the event was one that had to be cut short at the end of the day, when my turn came, and now, in the interest of time and space, we petitioners were grouped together, and value was not discussed. It was already late in the day when my turn came. The Manager led us out to the grassy area in front of Grant Hall. The Crow, who in hindsight, I realize, must have been physically and mentally exhausted having begun work at 9AM, was running out of daylight. Still, nothing was rushed. We were called out of the waiting room by The Manager and instructed to form a circle on the grassy area between Grant Hall and the parking lot on Maryland Parkway. Beyond the circle one could see a small forest of white helium-filled balloons tethered to the grass on long feathery lengths of reddish-orange yarn. High up in the trees overhead a couple of balloons had caught on the branches. The Crow assured us that the messages she delivered did not depend on a mere balloon; they would get to their target no matter what. We held onto our messages, facing each other across the circle, uncertain what would happen next. The Crow picked her way gracefully around the interior of the circle and examined us one by one. She cocked her magnificent head to the side and fixed us in her penetrating gaze. Finished with sizing one up she moved to the next. When ready she danced tentatively forward toward someone, cautiously stopping a short distance away, cocking her head expectantly, wordlessly waiting for the message to be proffered before coming closer. When the message was extended she approached the petitioner and with a graceful bow accepted the tiny scroll. Next she moved to the tethered balloons and began to search the ground thoughtfully until certain of her choice. With a pair of scissors that seemed to materialize from nowhere she severed the tethering yarn with an elegant gesture, tied the message securely to the loose end of the yarn, and released the balloon into the sky. Up, up went the balloon with its precious cargo. One could watch its slow but steady, graceful rise, carried by the breeze up and up until it was too tiny to see. No balloon caught on a limb or a high wire. Just watching the balloon until it disappeared was a deeply satisfying, richly meditative experience. While the balloon was rising The Crow returned to the field of still tethered balloons and searched the grass for something hidden there. When she found what she was looking for she picked it up reverently and brought it with dancing steps to the one whose message was on its way. The Crow placed it in a person’s hands with a polite bow and a nod of her head. It was clearly a Gift, unexpected, unanticipated, and unmentioned, an unlooked for bonus. When my turn came, I realized by the weight of it that it was the heavy thing that kept the balloon earthbound till it was released to carry my message. Secured to each gift by tightly wrapped coils of fine, shiny copper wire was a tiny rolled up piece of paper. On the paper was a typed message intended for the sender. The Crow’s Manager instructed us to read the message we received but to keep it to ourselves and not to reveal its contents to anyone for two weeks. One by one the messages were sent, and Gifts received. Everyone waited patiently in the circle until the process was complete, savoring the experience before breaking up quietly and returning to business as usual. When I looked at the Gift, the weight that had served as the balloon ballast, I was stunned. It was a small, exquisitely crafted work of art, -one of a hundred. Right there in the sacredness of the final moments, I was overwhelmed by the scale and utter magnitude of 100 Messages Sent By a Crow. The fashioning of the gift-weights alone was a staggering enterprise. Each was a unique, small sculpture, a one-of-a-kind construction lovingly assembled from an equally lovingly collected trove of found objects, someone else’s lost treasures. Objects that would delight a crow, or a small child: tiny animal bones, toys and parts of toys, small glass vials, bits of shiny metal, beads, buttons, old tin boxes, feathers, cardboard, colored sand, -each object dropped, discarded, or left behind by someone like a trace or clue on the desert floor, only to be rescued, picked up, and restored to life by Crow and company. Someone’s lost treasure, someone’s dropped or discarded property became a work of art through the process of assemblage, transformed into a miniature jewel-like sculpture. I found myself pondering the fate of these priceless, small works of art, given away so generously and without hesitation along with their secret messages; I hoped they would be recognized and appreciated. Dr. Louisa MacDonald
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